Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of President Macron's statement on 1 October that “we have information today that indicates with certainty that Syrian fighters from jihadist groups have transited through Gaziantep to reach the theatre of operations in Nagorno-Karabakh.”

The UK Government noted the 11 November statement of the UN Working Group on the use of mercenaries, in which the Group said it had received reports that both Azerbaijan and Armenia had deployed foreign fighters in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. While the Government is also aware of such reports, we have not yet seen solid evidence to substantiate the claims. The UK Government has made no assessment of President Macron's 1 October statement and is not aware of the specific information to which he referred.